The bad newsI am very sad to let you know that Happy Meeple will be closing in mid-december.
The platform was launched in March 2012 with the idea of bringing simple yet interesting board games to the mass market.
I carefully selected 13 games, wrote tutorials to make it easy to start playing and added Artificial Intelligence to play even when no human opponents were available. This, I hoped, were the keys to success.
Unfortunately, while the whole endeavour has not been a total failure (7 million games were played over the years and about 500 players were playing daily), it was not enough of a success to balance the books and certainly not to pay a salary.
In the last two years, I have dedicated less and less time to the platform. As a result, it has become more and more difficult to maintain. We had issues with our email servers. We were running low on hard disk storage. And finally the technology behind the gaming server was outdated and needed a rewrite that I never finished.
It was getting harder and harder to get it going. And regretfully, it is now time to pull the curtains.
I am sure that you are disappointed but there is hope… You can keep playing.
The good newsOur most popular games (Lost cities, Cartographers, Hanamikoji and Level X) are available on another platform called “Board Game Arena” and they have agreed on a special offer for Happy Meeple players.
The offer is twofold:
1) All Happy Meeple players that will create an account on Board Game Arena will join a “Happy Meeple players” group. I insisted on this feature and hope that it will make it easy for you to find your old friends. I suggest that you use the same nickname as on Happy Meeple if possible.
2) Like Happy Meeple, Board Game Arena does not require a subscription to play, it is a free platform. However, I strongly recommend that you become a subscriber as it has many benefits and is very affordable. If you subscribe (one month or more), Board Game Arena will give you one extra month for free.
Please note the important information below:
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If you don’t have an account with Board Game Arena: you must use the link below to create an account and then you need to use it again when you want to proceed with the subscription and benefit from the offer.
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If you already have an account with Board Game Arena:if you have not been a premium member in the last 30 days, you can also benefit from the offer. First login to Board Game Arena, then click on the link below and proceed with the subscription.
The link will work for one year until 20/11/2025.
ThanksI wish to thank all the persons that I worked with, in particular the publishers and game designers that trusted me with their games and the illustrators and translators that made it all so friendly. I don't want to forget the admins that helped moderate the platform. And of course, you the players! The vast majority of Happy Meeple players were very nice and fair-play.
May the Happy Meeple spirit live long on Board Game Arena.
Final wordsHappy Meeple has been a fun ride for me. I hope to see you again on Board Game Arena soon. Feel free to get in touch with me there if you have any question or want to play a game.
Nicolas Guibert.
Roitelet (on Board Game Arena)
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